epcotobsessed
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- May 1, 2018
We leave tomorrow and we have been thinking (hoping?) that crowds won't be so bad because of SWGE opening later in August - how have crowds been these last several days? See you all soon
We arrive on 8/4 and I can't wait. The only thing I am concerned about is the chance of a tropical depression. One may form off of PR this week
ditto, they're not sure on projection yet if we will be water logged or not. We are there Aug 2-5.I've been monitoring the ride wait times and things seem to have started to calm down a bit. The wait times are still bad between 2-8 but the morning has been okay.
We arrive on 8/4 and I can't wait. The only thing I am concerned about is the chance of a tropical depression. One may form off of PR this week
Oh, that is music to my ears! If Epcot is like that on the days we are there I don't care if everywhere else is packed to the gills!Confirmed... I was there last week... crowds were stupid at MK. Worst I have ever seen... in 17 trips. AK and HS were manageable... only did a day at each. Epcot was the only exception... absolutely dead... waited 15-20 minutes for Soarin and Test Track.
I think that's spot-on and why we are only planning to RD Epcot because we're staying at BC, so if crowds are nuts we'll just go back to the hotel for a while and try again later. We were fortunate to get the exact FPs we wanted at the times we wanted at the other parks, which made me think that maybe crowds wouldn't be so bad, but that seems unlikely.To me, one area I really feel the shades of grey of “crowded” is with rope drop. If crowds are on the lower side, you get more of a rope drop advantage... you can cover more ground and it takes things just a touch longer to fill in to where lines are longer than I typically want to deal with (generally speaking). When crowds are higher (which in my view they were last week), the rope drop advantage goes away pretty quickly. I felt that was the case last week, particularly at MK.
To me, one area I really feel the shades of grey of “crowded” is with rope drop. If crowds are on the lower side, you get more of a rope drop advantage... you can cover more ground and it takes things just a touch longer to fill in to where lines are longer than I typically want to deal with (generally speaking). When crowds are higher (which in my view they were last week), the rope drop advantage goes away pretty quickly. I felt that was the case last week, particularly at MK.
We were just there from 7/20-7/21. I'm almost afraid to tell you because I don't want to spoil your trip--but this is the honest truth. We stayed at the Poly, booked all reservations well in advance, and did FP at 7AM at the 60 day window. We have gone this time of the year (give or take a week) the past 6 years consecutively. Huge Disney fans, love, love, love....best Disney vacation ever just last summer. Having said that, we had absolutely planned to go again next summer (already working with travel agent to book 2020) until we went this summer.We leave tomorrow and we have been thinking (hoping?) that crowds won't be so bad because of SWGE opening later in August - how have crowds been these last several days? See you all soon
From what I have been reading on here it's same as we experienced 7/4-7/9. MK always VERY busy. Rest of the parks are lighter.
I'm not sure if its an early versus late thing--we usually always go late July or early August--it was just insanely packed this year compared to previous trips we've taken--and the park hours just were on par for the crowd levels. During times this crowded, MK can be open from 7AM-11pm normally--sometimes even until midnight. This year it was 9-10 most days. Last summer Hollywood at longer evening hours on Friday--they closed about 9pm this year (and Hollywood was packed!), the summer before that Animal Kingdom had later evening hours--but they also closed by 9 or 10pm most nights too...I posted this in the July Happy Dance thread yesterday, but it might have some relevancy to the question:
I know "summer crowds" is a common topic around the DIS. We did late June/first week of July in 2017 & 2018. This year we needed to travel later, just got back from a week at WDW.
I was curious to see any difference between early and late July, crowd wise. I think I'd peg things as definitely on the busier side late July judging from this past week. I had been looking at what I deem pretty stout wait times on many rides in the days before we left, and it generally matched that on the ground. It wasn't the holidays, but it wasn't "summer slow" either.
I was reminded of some rather obvious circumstances, such as how storms really wreak havoc on some FP lines when anytime FPs get flooded through the system.
Still had a great time - did everything we wanted, dodged the weather, plenty of park and resort time, etc. It was maybe just a touch more crowded than I expected, and for clarity, I am mainly thinking of MK (and DAK to some extent) when I say this.